UC-NRLF 


SB    bO 


|roit. 


DISCOURSE 


DELIVERED    IX    THE 


NORTH  CHURCH,  HARTFORD, 


OX    THE 


ANNUAL  STATE  FAST,  APRIL  14, 1854. 


BY   HORACE   BUSHNELL. 

U 


EDWIX   HUNT   AND   SOX 

M.DCCC.LIV. 


ENTERED  ACCORDING  TO  ACT  OF  CONGRESS,  IN  THE  TEAR  1854,  BY 

EDWIN  HUNT, 
IN  THE  CLERK'S  OFFICE  OF  THE  DISTRICT  COURT  OF  CONNECTICUT. 


PRINTED   liY    CASE.  TIFFANY   AND    COMPANY. 


DISCOURSE. 


Ji-;n.  15:  12.     SHALL  IRON  BREAK  THE  NORTHERN  IRON  AND  THE  STEEL  ? 

ABSURD  as  it  may  be,  there  yet  are  many  signs  in  our 
time  that,  for  once,  it  is  going  to  be  done.  And  yet  we  do 
not  quite  despair  of  the  harder  metal. 

This  harder  metal,  called  steel  by  us,  was,  in  the  proph 
et's  day,  called  indifferently  northern  iron  and  steel, 
[ckalybs,]  because  it  was  from  the  commercial  town  or  city 
of  Chalybs,  a  port  of  the  Black  Sea.  Accordingly  it  be 
came  a  proverb,  so  familiarly  known  was  the  superior  hard 
ness  and  strength  of  this  metal,  that  "  northern  iron  is  not- 
cut  by  iron,"  just  as  "biting  on  a  file"  has  become  a  proverb 
with  us,  to  indicate  the  absurdity  of  attempting  to  demol 
ish  a  character  without  character,  or  a  firm  cause  by  weak 
arguments. 

Of  course  it  is  not  my  design,  this  morning,  to  occupy 
you  with  a  dissertation  or  lecture  on  the  comparative  prop 
erties  of  steel  and  iron,  or  on  their  mutual  action  one  upon 
the  other :  these  are  matters  sufficiently  well  understood. 
I  only  design  to  use  the  prophet's  figure  in  his  own  way, 
for  the  question  of  the  text  is  a  metaphoric  or  figurative 
question,  in  which,  referring  to  the  absurdity  of  supposing 
that  common  iron  will  cut  steel,  he  asks,  Who  will  be  so 
dull  as  to  think  that  any  common  force  is  going  to  break 
through  God's  decrees,  and  turn  back  the  word  of  his 

M219180 


prophets  ?  I  shall  use  the  illustration  in  the  same  figura 
tive  manner,  only  in  reference  to  another  and  different  sub 
ject. 

The  question  of  the  text — "  Shall  iron  break  the  northern 
Iron  or  the  steel?"  is  one  that  is  often  asked  by  the  people 
of  our  northern  states,  under  this  or  that  form,  and  some 
times  with  a  kind  of  misgiving  or  faintness  of  heart,  as  if 
now  the  steel  were  really  going  to  give  way  and  be  bat 
tered  by  raw  iron.  This  is  not  my  opinion.  I  have  no 
apprehension  of  any  such  ignominious  result.  It  can 
never  take  place  until  steel  and  iron  have  changed  places, 
and  the  natural  order  of  their  capacity  is  inverted.  At  the 
same  time,  it  can  not  be  denied,  as  already  intimated,  that 
we  have  many  indications  in  the  facts  of  our  public  his 
tory,  which  may  naturally  enough  discourage  the  confi 
dence  of  some.  And  for  that  reason  it  is  not  wonderful 
that  many,  who  have  no  doubt  whatever  of  the  superiority 
of  our  genuinely  free  principles,  and  that  in  all  the  points 
where  our  institutions  are  contrasted  with  the  southern, 
we  are" to  them  as  the  northern  iron  to  iron,  are  yet  exer 
cised  with  real  anxiety  lest  the  wrong  should  vanquish  the 
right  and  the  mock  principle  the  true,  and  even  the  proph 
et's  question  be  turned  to  bad  rhetoric  by  the  final  subjec 
tion  of  the  steel  to  the  iron. 

What  I  propose  for  the  present  occasion  is  a  deliberate 
review  of  the  prognostics  of  this  pending  controversy  be 
tween  the  northern  and  southern,  or  the  genuinely  free  and 
the  slaveholding  sections  of  our  republic ;  endeavoring,  if 
possible,  to  settle  our  judgment  of  the  issue,  and  fortify 
our  confidence  in  the  part  we  are  called  to  maintain.  The 
subject  is  a  painful  one ;  painful  because  it  assumes  the 
possibility  of  doubt  or  debate  in  regard  to  a  matter  as 
sumed  to  be  settled  by  the  fundamental  principles  of  our 
institutions,  and  yet  more  painful  that  it  requires  us  to  speak 


of  sections  and  sectional  issues,  that  have  an  ominous  and 
evil  sound,  suggesting  elements  of  strife  and  discord,  per 
ilous  to  the  unity  of  our  Republic.  I  can  not  deny  that 
there  is  something  invidious  in  the  very  statement  of  my 
subject,  and  yet  I  take  no  blarne  to  myself  on  that  account. 
The  time  of  delicacy  is  now  gone  by.  We  only  speak  of 
that  which  is  forced  upon  us,  and  take  our  stand  for  princi 
ples  which  belong  to  our  country,  but  which  now,  alas! 
have  come  to  be  the  principles  only  of  a  section  ;  there  to 
be  maintained  with  fidelity,  or  else  to  be  fought  for  again 
by  the  generations  to  come,  after  our  degenerate  times 
have  finished  the  treason  of  a  faithless  and  base  surrender. 
"We  can  not  forbear  to  speak  for  human  liberty  because  it- 
has  become  a  merely  sectional  charge  or  interest  of  the 
republic. 

It  is  a  grief  to  many  and  a  sign  of  triumph  for  the  slave- 
holding  interest  of  our  nation,  that  while  we  at  the  north 
are  so  easily  divided  and  broken,  they  are  so  easily  brought 
to  act  in  concert  and  a  well-sustained  concentration  of 
movement.  They  are  consolidated,  as  it  were,  by  the 
pressure  of  their  common  interest,  acting  always  with 
great  unanimity,  and  maintaining  their  cause  with  an  ever 
vigilant  jealousy.  We,  on  the  other  hand,  having  no  such 
bond  of  interest  or  peril  to  hold  us  together,  fall  asunder 
more  easily,  become  divided  among  ourselves,  act  against 
one  another,  and  where  there  is  a  personal  or  party  advan 
tage  to  be  gained,  there  will  too  often  be  some  that  dare  to 
betray  our  position,  or  desert  and  dishonor  our  principles. 
We  have  seen  so  much  of  this  that  many  are  fatally  dis 
heartened  by  it. 

And  yet  if  you  look  again  you  will  see  that  the  concen 
tration  referred  to  is  the  result  only  of  weakness,  and  our 
want  of  concentration  the  result  only  of  strength  and  a 


state  of  power  that  makes  us  too  secure  to  have  any  con- 
'cern  for  unity.  Accordingly,  if  anything  should  occur 
that  presses  our  concern,  or  awakens  the  sense  of  jeopardy, 
you  will  see  (exactly  what  is  visible  now)  that  we  are  ral 
lied  to  a  unity  of  action  as  spontaneous  and  firm  as  that 
of  the  southern  or^slaveholding  side  of  the  republic.  Let 
the  voice  of  the  north  be  called  for  now  in  a  general  elec 
tion,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  even  a  single  vote  could 
be  carried  in  support  of  the  perfidious  measure  by  which 
the  adherents  of  slavery  in  our  Congress,  are  now  hoping 
to  seal  their  political  ascendency. 

At  the  same  time,  in  computing  the  forces  at  work  in 
our  political  history,  we  must  not  omit  to  notice  the  very 
great  advantage  hitherto  accruing  to  the  south,  under 
what  is  familiarly  known  as  the  problem  of  availability. 
They  have  just  one  interest,  viz.,  slavery.  Their  policy  is 
simple  and  single  and  well  understood.  Whatever  will 
soothe,  or  fortify,  or  amplify  slavery,  draws  them  into  a 
lead  of  unity.  They  offer,  in  this  manner,  to  the  political 
gamesters,  who  are  making  up  their  count  of  party  capi 
tal,  a  prize  too  captivating  to  be  disregarded.  Nothing  is 
necessary  to  assured  success,  but  to  carry  the  southern 
vote,  with  only  a  small  addition  just  to  turn  the  scale  ; 
and  what  will  carry  that  vote  is  seldom  any  matter  of 
doubt.  With  us,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  such  unity 
of  interest.  Our  wealth  is  multiform;  our  productions 
more  or  less  antagonistic  to  each  other.  Commerce  is  the 
rival  of  agriculture;  manufactures  of  commerce;  coal  of 
iron  ;  the  wool  growing  of  wool  manufacture.  We  em 
body  also  conflicting  races,  religions,  and  all  the  varieties 
of  opinion  gendered  by  our  higher  intellectual  activity. 
Accordingly,  there  has  been  nothing  here  to  be  definitely 
counted  on;  no  calculable  interest  offeririg  itself  as  a  prize 
in  the  game  of  party  capital ;  for  so  diverse  and  conflicting 


are  our  interests  that  we  hardly  know  what  we  want  our 
selves.  Hence  the  great  question  of  political  availability, 
has  been  rested,  hitherto,  in  its  whole  stress,  and  it  is  about 
the  heaviest  stress  of  movement  on  opinion  and  character 
to  which  our  American  society  is  subjected,  on  questions 
of  southern  interest.  The  problem  is  how  to  carry  the 
south ;  more  boldly  stated,  how  to  buy  the  south  ;  by 
what  sale  of  principle,  or  Nebrask  fetch,  to  draw  the  south 
ern  interest  and  consolidate  a  voting  capital  that  will  secure 
the  triumph  of  this  or  that  man,  or  this  or  that  party. 
How  this  works,  we  have  abundantly  seen  in  the  matter  of 
the  Georgia  Indians;  the  Mexican  war;  the  slave-hunt 
war  of  Florida;  the  fugitive  slave  law;  and  now  again, 
once  more,  in  a  shape  that  offends  the  stomach  even  of 
political  appetite  itself. 

We  have  also  been  weakened,  at  the  north,  by  a  cause 
more  distinctively  honorable,  viz.,  by  our  love  to  the 
Union  ;  for,  having  as  a  part  of  our  moral  nurture,  this 
high  virtue  of  attachment  to  the  country  and  its  institu 
tions,  the  political  managers  find  how  to  play  upon  us 
and  lead  us  adroitly  under  the  smoothest  and  fairest  pre 
texts,  into  a  submission  to  measures  that  have  only  a  ques 
tionable  agreement  with  the  institutions  we  have  it  as  a 
charge  on  our  virtue  to  protect  and  perpetuate.  Many 
years  ago,  a  certain  convention  was  gathered  in  this  city, 
which  has  been  called,  ever  since,  by  distinction,  the  Hart 
ford  Convention.  It  was  composed  of  sober,  Christian 
men,  who  had  become  exasperated  by  what  they  regarded 
as  the  wrongs  and  partialities  of  the  government.  How 
far  they  meant  to  instigate  sedition,  has  been  a  question. 
Enough  that  merely  the  suspicion  of  such  a  design,  taken 
up  and  echoed  by  the  more  or  less  passionate  appeals  of 
their  adversaries,  placed  them  forever  after  under  a  ban 
of  political  outlawry.  Meantime  it  is  the  regular  and 


8 

almost  infallible  resort  of  the  slaveholding  section  of  the 
republic,  when  any  great  measure  in  which  they  are  con 
cerned  is  to  be  resisted  or  carried,  to  take  up  the  open 
threat  of  disunion.  They  have  no  principle  of  honor 
against  it ;  for  it  is  not  any  part  of  their  political  virtue  to 
adhere  to  their  country — they  have  no  country  but  slavery. 
Accordingly,  it  aih'xes  no  stigma  on  the  agitators.  They 
are  as  good  for  candidates  after  they  have  run  out  their 
treason,  or  gasconade  of  treason,  as  they  were  before. 

Under  this  same  principle  of  loyalty  to  the  Union  we 
have  been  drawn,  with  too  great  facility,  into  manv  con 
cessions  and  compromises  that  have  yet  farther  weakened 
our  position,  inasmuch  as  they  have  weakened  our  integ- 
ritv  in  the  principles  of  American  liberty.  I  will  not  speak 
with  disrespect  of  any  compromises  that  may  turn  on 
points  of  mere  interest ;  for  these  are  fit  subjects  of  com 
promise.  But  we  have  a  case  entirely  different,  where  the 
compromise  turns  on  a  matter  of  principle — -still  worse, 
where  the  principle  compromised  lies  at  the  foundation  of 
our  liberties  and  of  all  that  we  boast  in  our  democracy  it 
self.  It  is  a  loss  too  bitter  when  a  whole  country  gives  up 
its  principles  to  accommodate  and  pacify  a  faction.  And 
it  is  remarkable  that  our  great  compromises,  of  which  we 
have  had  so  many,  have  been  all  of  this  kind,  accommo 
dations  of  liberty  with  slavery,  surrenders  of  steel  to  iron. 
They  have  every  one  involved  some  sacrifice  of  founda 
tions,  some  lie  against  the  principles  of  our  free  institu 
tions,  debauching,  in  so  far,  as  they  needs  must,  our  politi 
cal  conscience,  as  well  as  our  religious  sense  of  humanity 
and  justice. 

I  will  not  assail  the  motive  by  which  many  patriotic 
men  have  been  led  to  unite  in  these  compositions.  If  in 
some  cases  it  was  done  under  the  pressure  of  an  impend 
ing  necessity,  as  appears  to  be  generally  conceded.  I  may 


nevertheless  regret  that  necessity ;  for  it  must  be  a  very 
stringent  alternative  that  compels  a  patriot  to  waive  the 
principles  of  his  country.  I  have  serious  doubts  whether 
God  ever  required  a  sacrifice  so  questionable,  or  brought  a 
crisis  on,  where  it  was  less  than  a  privilege  and  honor  to 
withstand  the  sacrifice.  However  this  may  be,  we  had 
first  the  compromise  of  the  Constitution,  which  makes 
every  slave,  though  held  in  southern  law  to  be  only  a  thing 
or  chattel,  three-fifths  of  a  man  or  citizen,  in  the  count  of 
public  representation!  With  this  came  another,  which 
consented  in  the  abolition  of  the  African  slave  trade,  pro 
vided  we  might  first  shame  all  our  principles  of  liberty  for 
twenty  years  in  the  practice !  Then  came  the  Missouri 
compromise,  in  wThich  we  agreed  to  have  no  care  for  Amer 
ican  principles  in  one  territory,  and  required  the  next  gen 
eration  to  be  more  faithful  to  them  in  the  territory  next  ad 
jacent!  Last  of  all,  as  the  ripe  fruit  of  this  kind  of  states 
manship,  came  the  confused  bundle  of  obliquities,  called 
the  compromise  of  1850  ;  where  we  paid  off  the  right  of 
California  to  come  into  the  Union  without  slavery !  and 
the  abolition  of  the  slave  pens  in  the  District  of  Columbia, 
in  which,  before  God  and  all  our  own  principles  of  civil 
liberty,  we  are  responsible  for  the  continuance  of  slavery 
at  all,  even  for  a  day,  by  agreeing  to  surrender  the  right  of 
trial  by  jury,  guaranteed  by  all  our  northern  constitutions 
for  every  human  being  of  whatever  race  or  co]or!  and 
also  to  take  an  extra  fee  when  we  pass  sentence  against 
liberty! 

And  now,  at  the  end  of  so  many  compromises,  where 
we  settle  points  of  conscience  by  contract,  and  agree  to 
split  the  difference  in  matters  of  principle,  what  do  we  find 
but  that  we  have  not  virtue  enough  left  to  stand  by  our 
contracts  and  fulfill  them — just  what  ought  to  have  been 


10 

seen  beforehand  ;  for  what  can  more  certainly  debauch  the 
moral  sense  of  any  people  and  rot  away  the  vitality  even 
of  faith  itself  in  their  bosoms,  than  a  course  of  legislative 
trifling  that  proposes  to  settle,  by  contract,  what  before 
was  settled  by  eternal  principles,  and  might  as  well  be  set 
tled  by  a  raffle  as  by  a  vote. 

True,  it  was  a  very  honorable  and  loyal  thing  in  us  to 
love  the  Union,  and  many  plausible  things  may  be  said, 
for  this  kind  of  proceeding.  But  for  one,  if  God  will  ex 
cuse  us  from  the  consequences,  I  would  be  most  gladly  ex 
cused  from  any  part  in  the  honor.  And  they  are  the  more 
to  be  regretted,  that  the  people  of  the  south  and  the  polit^ 
ical  leaders  of  the  north,  have  learned  by  them  what  wires 
to  pull,  or  arguments  to  bring,  if  they  will  tame  us  to  any 
of  their  schemes  and  party  compositions.  That  the  most 
accomplished  party  leader,  or  as  some  would  say,  the  sub- 
limest  demagogue  the  nation  has  seen,  should  have  been 
forward  in  these  compromises  and  spent  his  public  life  in 
them,  was  but  a  matter  of  course  ;  but  that  a  statesman 
brought  up  in  the  principles  of  northern  liberty,  always 
heretofore  the  acknowledged  champion  of  those  principles, 
should  have  condescended  to  prepare  a  case  for  this  com 
promising  talent; 'coming  out  suddenly,  in  a  time  of  pro 
found  peace,  like  a  clap  of  thunder  in  a  clear  sky,  to  cry 
"danger  to  the  Union ;"  enumerating,  with  declamatory 
heat  and  exaggerated  words,  the  wrongs  of  the  south,  and 
stirring  them  up  to  redress  those  wrongs,  by  a  violence  of 
action  not  fictitious;  drawing  after  him,  at  the  north,  by 
the  authority  of  his  name  and  position,  large  bodies  of  the 
most  principled  lovers  of  the  Union,  whose  loyalty  made 
them  a  prey  too  easy  to  the  stupendous  fiction — this,  I  say, 
was  not  to  be  expected.  We  name  it  with  profoundest 
mortification.  Nay,  if  we  could  persuade  ourselves  to 
visit  the  tomb  where  so  much  of  genius  and  of  mortal 


11 

greatness  lies  down  baffled  and  broken  with  defeat,  we 
could  only  say  in  our  tears  of  mingled  homage  and  sorrow, 
"  Alas!  tha,t  the  iron  has  broken  the  northern  iron  and  the 
steel." 

Another  and  most  melancholy  sign  that  our  steel  is 
yielding  to  iron,  is  given  us  in  the  fact  that  so  many  com 
promises,  accepted  with  so  great  facility,  under  the  honor 
able  pretext  of  fidelity  to  the  Union,  have  finally  lost  us 
even  the  respect  of  the  south.  They  are  disgusted  by  the 
lameness  of  our  compliances.  They  declare  that  we  really 
have  no  principles,  else  we  should  assert  them,  and  that 
our  pretended  love  to  the  Union  is  only  a  fiction  ;  that  we 
care,  in  fact^jpr  nothing  but  the  main  chance  of  money 
and  tradeXNay  they  even  boast  that  they  can  cotton  us 
at  pleasure,  and  if  I  can  understand  the  course  of  some  of 
our  northern  politicians  in  the  Congress,  they  are  acting 
on  the  assumption  thaf,  as  we  have  knuckled  to  the  fugi 
tive  slave  law,  so  when  once  the  vote  is  carried  and  the 
Missouri  compromise  annihilated,  our  steel  will  give  way 
as  tamely  to  the  iron  under  that;  in  which  it  appears  that 
we  have  not  only  incurred  the  contempt  of  the  south,  but, 
which  is  a  far  more  terrible  retribution,  taught  our  own 
public  men  to  have  no  confidence  in  our  spirit  or  integrity. 
Thus  a  leading  southern  paper,  piling  words  of  insult  on 
us,  in  a  recent  article  on  the  Nebraska  bill,  says :  "  They 
threaten  us  with  a  great  northern  party  an^l  a  general  war 
upon  the  south.  But  they  will  do  no  such  thing.  They 
will  bluster  and  utter  a  world  of  swelling  self-glorification, 
and  end  in  knocking  themselves  down  to  the  highest  bid 
der.  How  far  they  may  carry  their  indignation  at  this 
time,  it  is  impossible  to  say,  but  we  may  be  sure  they  will 
cool  off  just  at  the  point  where  they  discover  that  they  can 
make  nothing  more  out  of  it,  and  may  lose !"  And  in  this 
you  may  see  to  what  extent  we  are  not  only  played  upon 


12 

or  victimized,  by  our  love  to  the  Union,  having  it  for  our 
reward  that  we  are  despised  and  insulted  by  those  who 
get  the  benefit  of  our  concessions. 

We  shall  also  discover,  if  we  refer  to  the  course  of  our 
political  history  since  the  government  was  organized, 
many  painful  indications  that  our  side  has  been  the  losing 
side.  Five  southern  Presidents  have  held  their  office  two 
successive  terms,  and  not  one  northern  President  has  ever 
been  able  to  hold  beyond  a  single  term.  At  the  end  of 
President  Piercers  term  they  will  have  bad  the  presidency 
forty-eight  years,  and  the  north  twenty,  The  cabinet  offi 
cers,  ambassadors,  judges  of  the  supreme  court,  and  higher 
military  officers,  have  been  drawn  from  the  south,  by  ma 
jorities  almost  as  decisive.  Meantime  the  courses  of  legis 
lation  and  the  tides  of  political  influence  have  been  opera 
ting  a  continual  change  in  favor  of  slavery  from  the  first — 
a  change  fitly  represented  by  the  ificfc  that  the  grandfather 
of  a  Connecticut  representative  in  Congress,  voting  the 
Nebraska  billj,  was  one  of  the  leading  members  of  a  Con 
necticut  anti-slavery  society.  Thus  also  the  Colonial 
Congress,  in  their  "  Address  to  Great  Britain,"  make  the 
institution  of  slavery  one  of  their  bitterest  grievances  ;  de 
claring  that  it  is  impossible  "for  men  who  exercise  their 
reason,  to  believe  that  the  divine  author  of  our  existence 
intended  a  part  of  the  human  race  to  hold  an  absolute 
property  in  others.  We  can  not  endure,"  they  say,  "  the 
jnfamy  and  guilt  of  resigning  succeeding  generations  to 
the  wretchedness  that  inevitably  awaits  them,  if  we  entail 
hereditary  bondage  upon  them."  All  the  great  men  of 
that  day,  Washington,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Henry,  Frank 
lin,  Hamilton,  Jay,  coincided  in  sentiments  like  these. 
They  had  no  more  expectation  that  slavery  would  survive 
the  date  of  our  independence  achieved,  than  that  sin  would 
continue  and  flourish  in  Paradise.  How  far  off  are  we 


13 

now  from  any  such  position,  debating,  in  fact,  whether  we 
shall  not  even  break  a  solemn  legislative  pledge  and  vote 
the  extension  of  slavery  at  the  expense  of  our  public  honor. 
Meantime  there  is  not  one  of  the  glorious  fathers  just 
named,  who,  if  he  were  living  ROW  and  daring  to  stand  by 
his  former  opinions  of  slavery,  could  obtain  so  much  as  a 
post-office,  or  the  place  of  a  tidewaiter  under  the  govern 
ment.  Accordingly  it  is  now  distinctly  conceded,  by  as 
good  southern  authority  as  the  Charleston  Courier,  "that 
our  government,  although  hostile  in  its  incipiency  to  do 
mestic  slavery,  and  starting  into  being  with  a  strong  bent 
toward  abolition,  yet  afterward  so  changed  its  policy  that 
its  action,  for  the  most  part  and  with  few  exceptions,  has 
fostered  the  slaveholding  interest,  and  swelled  it  from  six 
to  fifteen  states,  and  a  feeble  and  sparse  population  to  one 
of  ten  millions." 

Add  now  to  all  these  points  which  I  have  brought  into 
view,  the  coraparati.ve  tameness  or  want  of  spirit  so  often 
manifested  by  our  northern  members  of  Congress,  driven 
out  of  their  positions  when  they  dare  to  take  them,  com 
pelled  to  eat  their  own  words,  browbeaten.,  magnetized  by 
the  slave-driving  and  imperious  manner  assumed  toward 
them,  humbled  to  the  meanest  and  most  contemptible 
sophistries,  such  as  could  not  even  impose  upon  a  child, 
to  justify  their  votes  to  their  constituents — the  discovery, 
for  example,  in  this  matter  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  that 
the  Missouri  restriction  is  •" unconstitutional!"  when,  by 
force  of  nature,  the  right  to  govern  lies  in  the  right  to  pos 
sess,  and  there  is  no  stipulated  right  to  govern  simply 
because  there  is,  in  the  constitution,  no  stipulated  right 
to  acquire  and  possess ;  also  the  discovery  that  there  is 
a  great  principle  here  which  forbids  the  compromise 
to  stand,  viz.,  the  "  principle  of  non-intervention !"  when 
in  fact  it  stands  on  the  face  of  the  bill  that  Congress 


14 

may  Intervene  in  everything  but  just  the  one  matter  of 
slavery — under  all  these  and  other  like  signs  continually 
appearing,  we  are  humbled,  mortified,  sometimes  angry 
and  sometimes  dispirited.  The  true  confidence  gives  way 
in  our  bosom,  and  as  the  lovesick  son  of  Montague  con 
fessed., 

"  Thy  beauty  hath  made  me  effeminate, 
And  in  my  temper  softened  valor's  steel/'' 

so  for  a  reason  much  less  poetic,  we  are  half  inclined  to 
yield  our  courage  up  and  say,  "  It  is  over,  the  northern  iron 
must  be  broken,  even  though  it  be  only  by  iron.'' 

Got!  forbid  !  We  are  brought,  as  yet,  to  no  such  alter 
native.  There  is  yet  another  side  to  this  question,  a  side 
where  we  are  met  by  confidence,  and  reassured  in  our 
courage. 

/'First  of  all  the  age  is  plainly  with  us,  and  all  the  cur- 
rehts  of  modern  civilization  are  pouring,  like  a  Mississippi, 
down  upon  the  head  of  slavery.  By  France,  England  and 
Denmark  it  is  abolished.  Austria  and  Russia  are  uproot 
ing  the  predial  bondage  or  serfdom  that  has  descended  as 
a  bad  inheritance  from  the  former  ages.  Even  Turkey  is 
moving  in  the  same  direction.  -  Indeed, it  is  our  most  igno 
minious  distinction,  that  we,  the  model  republic  of  the 
world,  the  people  of  Washington,  are  left  almost  alone,  in 
this  nineteenth  century,  in  the  maintenance  of  chattel 
slavery!  This,  too,. is  distinctly  seen  by  our  southern  fel 
low-citizens  themselves.  Strange  and  pitiable  fact — the 
Rev.  Dr.  Thornwell,  of  South  Carolina,  in  his  late  argument 
for  the  divine  right  and  blessing  of  slavery,  admits  that 
now  the  world  is  on  the  other  side,  and  that  the  southern 
states  have  it  now  on  hand  to  stand  up,  in  the  spirit  of 
martyrs,  against  the  condemnation  and  the  scorn  of  the 
civilized  world,  to  maintain  the  perpetuity  and  vindicate 


15 

• 

the  right  of  the  sacred  institution  of  slavery !  What  a  pic 
ture  of  weakness  have  we  displayed  in  such  an  attitude  as 
that!  And  suppose  it  should  sometime  happen  that  the 
immense  majority  of  non-slaveholding  voters  in  the  south 
(for  there  are  only  about  130,000  that  hold  slaves  out  of  the 
whole  ten  millions  of  their  census) — suppose,  I  say,  these 
overwhelming  majorities  should  some  time  get  their  eyes 
open,  and  should  not  exactly  care  to  be  martyrs  for  that 
which  only  reflects  disgrace  on  their  industry,  and  keeps 
them  down  to  a  level  of  irredeemable  poverty  arid  con 
tempt.  What  then?  Before  this  one  consideration,  van 
ishes,  how  suddenly,  all  appearance  of  strength  or  security. 
Besides,  not  only  is  the  age  with  us,  but  our  own  insti 
tutions,  our  whole  history  as  a  people  is  with  us.  The 
government  is  a  democracy ;  that  can  not  be  denied,  and 
there  is  no  sophistry  that  can  long  hold  the  men  or  the 
party  of  democracy  at  peace  with  human  slavery.  The 
Germans  are  beginning  to  have  their  eyes  opened  to  this 
matter,  and  a  great  many  others  of  our  natural  born  citi 
zens  begin  to  perceive  even  more  distinctly,  the  stupend 
ous  absurdity  of  standing  for  equal  liberty  or  democracy, 
and  voting  human  slavery,  or  even  conniving  at  its  perpe 
tuity.  There  is  soon  to  appear,  if  it  is  not  already  discern 
ible,  a  new  resolution  of  party  ties,  and  the  question  is  to 
be  exactly  that  which  is  raised  by  our  institutions  them 
selves.  The  northern  iron,  the  true  democratic  element, 
that  in  which  our  history  began,  is  not  gone ;  it  is  in  the 
people,  the  unsophisticated  people,  and  it  is  just  as  certain 
to  assert  its  power  and  come  out  in  the  unfolding  of  life, 
as  a  tree  to  bear  fruit  in  its  kind,  and  not  to  begin  as  a  fig, 
bearing  olives  in  the  end.  Nothing  is  weaker,  nothing 
more  certainly  doomed  to  perish  and  die,  than  any  institu 
tion  which  is  not  in  keeping  with  the  history  that  embo 
soms  and  shelters  it. 


16 

Do  you  ask,  then,  how  it  is,  that  our  political  history  has 
been  so  far  in  the  interest  of  slavery?  It  could  not  be  oth 
erwise,  I  answer,  until  such  time  as  the  great  issue  prepar 
ing  is  definitely  made  up  and  the  alternative  pressed  home 
in  a  point  blank  question  that  can  not  in  anyway  be  evaded. 
The  revolutionary  fathers  were  against  slavery,  at  the 
beginning,  simply  because  they  were  honest  men,  and  be 
cause,  wanting  to  be  free  themselves,  they  had  not  been 
long  enough  practiced  in  the  sophistries  of  the  question  to 
find  how  they  could  be  at  once  republicans  arid  slavehold 
ers.  Under  the  natural  conflict,  therefore,  of  interest  and 
principle,  this  process  of  sophistication  must  needs  begin  ; 
and  it  must  go  on  till  it  comes  to  a  natural  limit  and  practical 
issue  where  the  freedom  or  democracy  established  reveals 
its  uttertincompatibility  with  the  slavery,  at  first  only  sen 
timentally  deprecated,  but  in  fact  left  standing.  The  pol 
iticians  must  temporize  and  form  their  combinations,  and 
work  their  schemes  of  availibility  till  they  run  the  question 
down  to  an  issue  where  the  people  will  endure  them  no 
longer — just  that  must  be  done,  that  has,  in  fact,  been 
done,  and  is  now,  I  trust,  brought  to  a  full  end.  But  you 
greatly  mistake  if  you  suppose  that  this  seeming  retrogra- 
dation  is  real.  It  is  not.  Neither  is  there  anything  in  it, 
rightly  viewed,  which  indicates  a  real  strength  in  slavery, 
or  anything  but  the  fact  that  its  day  of  doom  is  approach 
ing.  All  the  encroachments  and  seeming  advances  of 
slavery  are,  in  one  view,  only  the  pleadings  that  prepare 
and  sharpen  the  issues  for  trial.  It  must  fully  reveal  itself 
before  we  could  take  our  ground  firmly  against  it,  and  this 
is  now  done.  We  are  brought  to  a  point  where  it  is  seen 
to  be  essentially  incompatible  with  the  life  of  our  institu 
tions,  and  there  is  no  alternative  but  that  we  shall  meet  it. 
The  wool  is  now  completely  off  the  eyes  of  our  people. 
They  understand  the  politicians,  and  are  going  now  to 


17 

have  a  final  reckoning  with  them.  They  have  learned, 
which  is  more,  the  1rue  import  of  the  chivalry ;  that  it  is  a 
kind  of  honor  without  faith — such  kind  of  honor  as  having 
no  scruple  in  robbing  a  man  of  himself,  need  have  as  little 
in  breaking  a  pledge  or  robbing  a  hetf-roost.  All  the 
immense  cry  we  have  heard  about  fanaticism  too,  and 
the  fiery  threats  of  disunion  are  now  understood  ;  for  it  is 
seen,  that  in  a  time  of  profound  peace,  when  everything 
that  has  been  asked  for  slavery  has  been  extorted,  and  the 
north  has  given  up  even  a  large  tithe  of  self-respect  to 
quiet  and  save  the  Union,  the  agitation  is  again  opened 
by  the  south  themselves,  in  a  perfidious  violation  of  their 
own  most  solemn  pledges,  to  accomplish  the  aggrandize 
ment  or  political  ascendency  of  slavery.  These  discove 
ries  are  fast  opening  the  eyes  of  our  people,  and  the  recent 
elections  are  signs  in  which  the  northern  demagogue,  who 
leads  the  conspiracy,  may  distinguish  the  end  of  his  trea 
son;  even  as  the  tidings  spoken  of  by  the  prophet  fore 
shadowed  the  fate  of  a  more  notable  victim.  "  But  tidings 
out  of  the  east  and  out  of  the  north  shall  trouble  him,  there 
fore  shall  he  go  forth  with  great  fury  to  destroy  and  utterly 
to  make  waste,  yet  he  shall  come  to  his  end  and  none  shall 
%help  him." 

Meantime  we  are  quite  delivered  of  our  concern  for 
the  Union.  The  Union  ?  Why  you  can  not  drive  the 
south  out  of  the  Union  by  anything  short  of  that  which 
drives  them  out  oftheir  reason,  and  even  the  smallest  ves 
tiges  of  discretional  have  witnessed  great  panics  raised 
over  this  matter  of  the  Union,  but  have  happily  never  seen 
the  time  when  there  appeared  to  be  any  the  least  real  dan 
ger  of  a  rupture.  Doubtless  the  remoter  southern  states, 
Georgia,  South  Carolina  and  the  states  of  the  Gulf,  might 
endure  the  risk  of  a  separation,  with  a  degree  of  compo 
sure.  But  the  question  is  not  with  them,  it  is  with  the 
2 


18 

frontier  line  of  states,  Maryland,  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Mis 
souri.  In  these  states  slavery  is  a  comparatively  feeble 
interest.  And  yet,  in  order  to  retain  the  doubtful  advan 
tage  of  holding  a  few  slaves,  which,  in  fact,  they  can  keep 
from  running  over  the  border  only  by  putting  them  in 
cages,  they  must  consent  to  have  a  Canada  brought  down 
to  their  doors,  and  be  separated  from  it  only  by  the  impal 
pable  line  of  a  conterminous  sovereignty.  There,  in  times 
of  peace  with  us,  they  must  live  in  a  continual  torture  of 
suspicion  lest  some  instigator  of  mischief  is  at  work  among 
their  slaves;  and  when  there  is  war  with  us,  which  is  like 
ly  to  be  true  a  great  part  of  the  time,  their  territory  must 
be  the  scene  of  perpetual  forays  and  patrollings  night  and 
day,  to  repel  our  incursions  and  keep  down  the  risings  of 
their  servants  at  their  own  thresholds  and  throats.  Ac 
cordingly  the  problem  will  be,  in  going  out  of  the  Union, 
to  find  that  tier  of  states  that  will  consent  to  be  the  fron 
tier  states,  and  take  the  brunt  of  the  suffering  and  the  dan 
ger — a  very  difficult  problem,  I  imagine  it  will  be  ;  for 
there  must  be  statesmanship  enough  left,  even  in  the  most 
demented  rage  of  passion,  to  see  what  such  a  position  will 
cost. 

No  more  then  are  we  to  be  imposed  upon  by  these ' 
political  fictions  or  panics  gotten  up  to  save  the  Union; 
no  more  to  be  weakened  and  drawn  off  from  our  princi 
ples,  to  accommodate  the  empty  threats  which  slavery  has 
learned  to  use  for  its  arguments.  I  think  too  that  we 
shall  soon  be  ready,  in  the  reaction  by  which  we  are  now 
recovering  our  position,  to  assume  a  more  energetic  atti 
tude  and  declare,  as  our  answer  to  all  such  threats,  that 
there  shall  be  no  separation  ;  that  our  fathers  have  be 
queathed  to  us  the  Union  and  that  we,  having  accepted 
the  trust,  will  keep  it  safe.  This  we  have  the  power  to 
say  and  make  the  saying  good.  There  is  no  force  in 


19 

slavery  that  can  sever  this  Union  and  make  a  southern 
empire  out  of  the  fragment  withdrawn,  except  by  our 
consent  and  sufferance ;  and  the  time  is  coming,  if  it  has 
not  already  come,  when  our  people,  instead  of  running 
about  in  pusillanimous  cackle,  \vhen  some  new  threat  is 
heard,  to  find  what  sacrifice  they  can  make  to  pacify  it, 
will  take  the  Union  into  their  own  hand  and  declare,  once 
for  all,  that  it  shall  be  maintained.  A  certain  tempering 
process  is  needed,  as  we  know,  to  give  the  requisite  hard 
ness  even  to  genuine  steel.  This  process  has  been  going 
on,  in  the  heat  of  so  many  panics  and  the  cool  of  so  many 
compromises,  and  the  annealing  is  now  brought  to  such  a 
pitch  that  we  are  ready,  and  have  our  temper  fully  set 
for  a  more  spirited  and  resolved  attitude ;  the  attitude 
which  our  wealth  and  numbers  and  arts  and  the  genuine 
force  of  our  principles  enable  us  to  hold,  as  the  responsi 
ble  defenders  of  the  Union.  "Which  if  we  do,  meeting 
the  threats  of  faction  by  a  resolute  answer,  that  no  dis 
union  will  be  permitted,  it  is  not  more  certain  that  iron 
will  submit  to  steel  than  that  such  a  position,  taken  with 
genuine  confidence,  will  settle  at  once  the  stability  of 
our  common  republic.  Neither  let  any  one  say  that,  in 
taking  such  a  position,  we  challenge  the  horrors  of  a  civil 
war.  Nothing  else  but  this  will  as  certainly  save  us  from 
a  civil  war.  Or,  if  it  must  come  to  the  worst,  then  it  is  a 
far  less  bloody  and  costly  work  to  maintain  the  armed 
integrity  of  the  Union,  than  to  support,  in  all  future  time, 
the  neighborhood  wars  that  must  follow  even  a  peaceful 
division. 

But  there  is  a  larger  computation  of  causes  and  con 
sequences,  in  which  we  may  see,  as  clearly  as  it  is  possi 
ble  to  see  anything  future,  that  the  free  states  are  destined 
to  wear  away  the  violence  of  the  slaveholding  states  and 
by  a  law  of  time,  apart  from  all  public  measures,  have 


20 

the  mastery  of  the  republic.  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that 
wealth  is  the  natural  fruit  of  free  labor,  poverty  of  slave 
labor.  Freedom  unites  motives  to  industry.  The  slavery 
of  labor  is  work  without  industry.  One  too  contains  the 
economic  element,  the  other  is  labor  in  a  law  of  waste. 
One  therefore  is  wealth,  and  the  other  poverty.  A 
barren  rock  in  freedom  will  be  riches  in  comparison  with 
a  natural  paradise  in  slavery.  The  towns,  the  buildings, 
the  roads,  the  agriculture,  the  schools,  the  commerce, — in 
all  these  freedom  will  be  a  sign  to  the  eye,  showing  that 
it  leads  the  march  of  progress  and  development.  With 
it  go  the  rewards  of  energy  and  righteousness.  And  it 
will  be  equally  conspicuous  in  the  slovenly  culture,  the 
impoverished  fields,  the  raw,  rude  looking  towns,  and  the 
tasteless,  ill  kept  structures  of  slavery,  that  the  poverty 
of  wrong  is  its  heritage.  The  contrast  I  sketch  is  familiar 
and  its  truth  is  abundantly  verified  by  experiment.  And 
yet  we  have  seen  almost  nothing  of  the  picture  that  is  to 
be  revealed  a  few  generations  hence,  when  the  legitimate 
fruits  both  of  free  and  slave  labor  are  fully  ripe.  That 
will  be  a  sorrowful  contrast,  in  which  even  debate  will 
cease  and  the  silent  Sahara  of  slavery  will  refresh  us  no 
more,  by  so  much  as  the  vaporing  airs  of  violence  and 
assumed  confidence. 

Population  too  has  a  stronger  ratio  of  increase  in  the 
free  than  in  the  slave  states.  The  political  representation 
is  regularly  advancing  on  one  side  and  regularly  dimin 
ishing  on  the  other,  and  the  sense  of  power,  which  is  a 
principal  root  of  courage  and  spirit,  will  not  be  increased 
on  one  side,  or  diminished  on  the  other,  without  a  corre 
spondent  effect  on  the  tone  of  public  confidence  and  the 
energy  of  public  attitudes.  In  which  we  may  discover, 
if  we  please,  that  even  the  swagger  of  sectional  threats 
and  assumptions,  is  placed  by  the  Almighty  under  a  stat- 


21 

ute  of  limitations.  Within  the  present  century  too,  the 
whole  northern  tier  of  states,  from  one  ocean  to  the  other, 
will  be  swarming  with  a  population  of  sixty,  or  a  hun 
dred  millions;  pressing  down  thus  more  and  more  heavily 
on  the  confines  of  slavery,  as  a  vast  incoming  wave  of 
free  labor;  annihilating  the  value  of  the  slave  property, 
requiring  a  division  of  the  great  plantations  into  small, 
economically  manageable  farms ;  till  finally  it  will  be  dis 
covered  that  the  laws  of  population  are  themselves  aboli 
tionists  without  any  concern  for  the  odium,  and  a  force 
more  invincible  than  liberating  armies.  Before  this  ad 
vancing  wave,  the  states  of  the  frontier  are  beginning 
even  now  to  yield,  undergoing  as  it  were  a  second  colo 
nization.  No  sooner  have  these  shaken  off  their  ignoble 
subjection  to  slavery,  than  the  doom  of  the  institution  is 
sealed.  All  agitation  apart,  and  simply  remaining  in 
quiet  fidelity  to  our  principles,  as  the  hard  and  subtle 
temper  of  steel  stays  fast  in  its  body,  sleeping  while  it 
cuts,  we  are  not  less  certain  of  driving  slavery  into  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  than  the  Mississippi  is  to  find  it  with  its 
waters.  And  the  time  is  much  closer  at  hand  than  many 
suppose. 

Meantime  it  is  a  great  advantage  that  the  literary 
power  of  the  republic,  is,  and  always  will  be,  on  the  side 
of  freedom^.  The  scholarship,  the  philosophic  and  esthet 
ic  culture,  the  originative  art  and  inspiration  of  slavery, 
are  barbarized  of  necessity  by  the  element  of  slavery,  and 
make  a  sorry  figure  in  the  world  of  letters.  Its  genuine 
accomplishments,  admitting  as  we  must  some  honorable 
exceptions,  are  dinners,  horses,  hounds  and  pistols,  united 
here  and  there  with  a  certain  power  of  harangue  which 
is  not  oratory,  and  as  much  of  political  skill  as  does  not 
amount  to  statesmanship.  The  highest  examples  of  cul 
ture,  such  as  are  heard  of  in  the  great  world  of  genius 


22 

and  elegant  authorship,  are  nurtured  in  the  schools  and 
tempered  in  the  clear,  living  atmosphere  of  freedom.  In 
this  field  of  literature,  slavery  looks  on  freedom  as  iron 
might  look  on  steel,  distinguishing  a  finer,  sharper  senti 
ment ;  hearing  too  the  heaven-born  rights  of  liberty  and 
truth  asserted  in  words  that  are  blades  of  Damascus,  too 
highly  tempered  to  be  turned  by  the  blunted  hacks  of 
declamatory  violence.  Here  again  you  have  a  tremen 
dous  silent  power,  by  which  slavery  is  continually  pressed 
and  weakened  in  confidence.  What  people  were  ever 
able,  for  any  great  length  of  time,  to  withstand  the  su 
premacy  and  fight  off  the  ideas  of  their  own  literature  ? 

Neither  let  it  be  forgotten  that  there  is,  in  the  people 
of  the  north,  what  never  can  be  wanting  where  intelli 
gence,  work  and  religion  are  united,  a  true,  genuine  sharp 
ness  of  principle,  which  can  not  be  long  fooled,  or  be 
guiled  of  its  natural  intent,  as  the  predestinated  supporter 
of  liberty.  I  speak  not  here  of  anything  pretensive,  but 
of  that  silent  something  which  Washington  rejoiced  to 
find  in  the  experiment  of  Bunker  Hill,  the  ability  "  to 
stand  fire"  for  a  cause  ;  that  which  rejected  the  king's 
stamps  and  drove  away  his  stamp-masters ;  the  same 
which  let  the  tea  go  for  the  tax,  instead  of  paying  the  tax 
for  the  tea.  Since  the  party  leaders  and  committees  have 
been  able,  once  or  twice,  by  their  cries  of  "  abolition"  and 
"  danger  to  the  Union,"  to  manage  the  northern  people 
so  adroitly  and  bring  them  to  submit,  with  so  good  a 
grace,  to  the  sale  of  their  principles  under  the  fair  pre 
texts  of  compromise  to  serve  the  common  good,  it  seems 
to  be  imagined  that  their  old,  Puritanic,  impracticable 
spirit  is  quite  gone.  As  it  has  been,  say  the  gamesters 
at  Washington,  so  it  will  be  again,  and  upon  that  com 
putation  they  base  their  votes.  But  they  do  not  take  into 
account  the  vast  unmasking  process  going  on  for  the  last 


23 

three  years,  and  the  silent  discoveries  the  people  have 
been  making  during  that  time.  They  have  been  submit 
ting  to  the  fugitive  slave  law  and  reading  Uncle  Tom  for 
comfort.  And  it  is  a  sign  quite  new  which  the  politi 
cians  would  do  well  to  bring  into  their  account,  that  the 
class  of  theater-goers  below,  taking  no  thought  of  the 
church-goers  above,  have  been  hearing  Uncle  Tom  and 
weeping  with  him,  night  after  night,  and  month  after 
month,  till  at  last  the  bugbear  of  abolition  is  changing  to 
a  trumpet  call  of  democracy.  And  when  once  that  turn 
is  fully  taken,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  northern  iron  is  not 
broken  or  to  be  broken.  It  will  be  strange  if  some  of  the 
leaders  who  have  undertaken  to  sell  their  constituents  do 
not  find  that  they  have  made  a  fatal  oversight. 

In  all  these  points,  in  the  matter  of  wealth,  population, 
literary  culture,  inborn  spirit  and  force,  you  perceive  the 
tremendous  array  of  causes  operating  and  conspiring 
against  slavery.  They  are  causes  that  make  no  public 
show  or  noise,  but  you  must  not  think  that,  because  they 
are  silent  compared  with  the  imperious  airs  and  fiery 
demonstrations  of  slavery,  they  have  less  power.  It  is 
here  as  in  Job — "  Out  of  the  south  cometh  the  whirlwind 
and  cold  out  of  the  north."  What  can  be  more  powerful, 
you  say,  than  the  whirlwind  ?  The  darkening,  booming 
air,  the  shuddering  tremor  of  the  ground,  the  thundering 
crash  of  the  forests,  stun  your  senses  for  the  moment  as 
if  the  end  of  all  things  were  come.  But  the  cold  creeps 
on  silent,  stealing  over  water  and  land ;  strips  the  trees, 
congeals  the  rivers,  splits  the  rock  or  the  cannon  in  whose 
heart  the  water  is  hid,  hardens  the  ground  to  a  casement 
of  stone,  wraps  a  shroud  round  the  body  of  the  world 
and  lays  it  by  as  in  a  grave.  Even  the  mariners  that 
survived  the  hurricane  are  stiffened  by  the  cold,  and  drop 
as  icicles  into  the  sea.  So  it  will  be  found  that  the  silent, 


24 

cold  north  has  yet  the  greater  power,  that,  apart  from  any 
bluster  of  violence,  it  moves  on  firmly  and  surely  in  the 
force  of  its  own  irresistible  laws,  hewing  a  way  patiently 
through  to  its  end.  And  whoever  thinks  otherwise,  judg 
ing  falsely  from  the  past,  will  find  that  what  have  seemed 
heretofore  to  be  fatal  hacks  on  the  steel,  were  only  cuts 
into  the  leather  of  the  sheath,  which,  having  just  now 
reached  the  blade  within,  are  likely  to  fare  in  the  repeti 
tion,  as  the  softer  metal  should. 

There  is  yet  another  element  in  the  power  of  the  north 
which  contains  a  very  certain  proof  that  the  northern  iron 
will  stand,  viz.,  that  God  and  principle  are  consciously 
felt  to  be  with  us,  and  not  with  the  interest  of  slavery. 
What  a  picture  have  we  of  the  moral  impotence  of  slave 
ry,  in  the  fact  that  some  of  our  well  meaning  northern 
philanthropists  have  just  now  been  called  to  organize  a 
"  Southern  Aid  Society,"  to  assist  the  slaveholding  people, 
with  all  the  immense  wealth  they  boast,  in  teaching  their 
slaves  the  way  of  salvation  ;  a  picture  yet  more  sad  in 
the  fact  that  they  must  be  saved  cautiously,  in  a  small  way 
and  by  rote,  lest  the  full  salvation  of  unrestricted  knowl 
edge  in  the  word  should  jeopard  the  life  of  their  masters. 
How  feeble  in  the  tone  of  confidence  must  any  people 
be,  first,  that  can  accept  a  ministration  like  this,  and  sec 
ondly,  that  can  dare  no  other.  How  little  does  it  mean,  in 
such  a  case,  that  they  can  make  out  theologic  arguments 
for  slavery.  There  is  never  any  true  force  in  a  people, 
who  can  not  be  assured  of  their  principles,  but  feel  a 
secret  tremor  of  misgiving  at  the  heart,  lest  God's  princi 
ples  may  be  against  them.  See  how  it  was,  a  few  days 
ago,  when  three  thousand  northern  ministers  sent  their 
brief  and  simple  protest  into  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States,  "  in  the  name  of  Almighty  God,"  against  the 
passage  of  the  Nebraska  bill.  The  name  of  Almighty 


25 

God!  it  was  shocking  strange,  they  knew  not  what  to 
make  of  it!  They  gathered  round  the  document,  like  a 
group  of  wild  men  round  some  air-stone  just  fallen  from 
the  sky,  trembling  and  gazing  at  respectful  distance,  won 
dering  from  what  world  the  strange  thing  came,  and 
whether  the  Great  Spirit  is  really  in  it  or  not.  In  such 
demonstrations,  you  may  see  the  essential  weakness  of 
any  cause,  or  institution,  or  form  of  society,  which  is  not 
certain  of  its  own  principle.  And  here  is  the  certain  as 
surance  that  the  northern  iron  will  stand.  Fair  weather 
cometh  out  of  the  north,  with  God  is  terrible  majesty. 
The  sky  of  principle  is  ever  clear  and  the  majesty  of  God 
is  only  the  more  appalling,  for  the  fair  weather  of  light 
and  purity  in  which  he  irradiates  the  confidence  of  right 
eous  men. 

There  is  then,  I  conclude,  no  reason  to  fear  that  the 
northern  iron  will  fail  or  break.  It  may  seem  at  times 
that  it  will,  or  has  already  broken,  but  all  such  misgivings 
are  premature  and  are  not  to  be  suffered. 

It  was  natural  and  was  probably  enough  expected  that 
I  would  go  into  a  formal  discussion,  to-day,  of  the  Ne 
braska  question.  But  I  saw  nothing  in  that  question 
that  requires  discussion  or  even  permits  it  longer.  I  pre 
ferred,  therefore,  to  take  you  farther  back  into  the  recesses 
and  tempering  processes  of  our  history,  and  show  you 
what  it  is  that  makes  Nebraska  bills  and  could  not  make 
anything  better;  what  also  it  is  that  is  going  to  be  their 
certain  defeat,  or  their  Egyptian  overthrow.  The  peo 
ple  of  the  south  tell  us,  that  it  is  not  they  that  are  for 
ward  in  this  matter,  and  affect  a  show  of  honor,  in  the 
fact  that  they  are  only  voting  what  the  north  proposes — 
just  as  the  chief  priests  and  Pharisees  might  have  said,  in 
their  accusation  of  Jesus,  that  they  were  only  acting  with 


26 

the  apostles  and  taking  their  lead,  because  they  had  found 
one  of  the  twelve  who  would  sell  his  Master.  But  let  us 
not  complain  too  bitterly  that  some  are  ready  to  betray 
us,  or  that,  when  they  sell,  there  is  not  faith  enough  in  the 
buyers  to  pay ;  for  it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  no  one  of 
our  chief  compromisers  has  ever  been  rewarded  by  the 
south  ;  and  they  are  ready,  as  we  now  see,  under  the  slight 
est,  thinnest  pretext,  after  having  gotten  their  part  of  the 
compromise,  to  reject  and  disown  their  obligation  in  the 
part  still  due  to  us.  Exactly  so  it  should  be,  for  what  is 
the  compromising  process  itself,  but  a  mode  of  political 
gaming,  under  a  patriotic  name ;  a  consenting  to  settle 
over  again  by  votes  and  contracts  what  was  settled  by 
the  first  principles  of  our  institutions;  a  surrender  of 
fidelity  here  that  makes  it  easy  to  surrender  there ;  a 
mode  of  dealing,  that  in  the  end,  is  sure  to  make  the 
peoples  and  the  states  only  counters  in  the  game  of  their 
leaders. 

It  could  not  be  otherwise.  Pontius  Pilate  was  a  poli- 
tican — not  a  statesman  but  a  politician — and  it  was  not 
strange  therefore,  that  he  also  undertook  to  be  a  compro 
miser.  And  the  Nebraska  bills  are  to  the  compromises, 
what  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus  was  to  the  alternative  by 
which  he  proposed  to  end  the  trial.  The  people  demand 
ed  a  sentence  of  death,  openly  threatening  to  report 
the  governor  to  Caesar,  and  break  down  Caesar's  con 
fidence  in  him.  Therefore  he  will  gratify  them,  in  part. 
Protesting  again  and  again,  "  I  find  no  fault  in  him,"  he 
adds  with  a  mean,  unprincipled  subserviency,  "  I  will 
therefore  chastise  him  and  let  him  go."  A  man  who 
could  propose  to  compromise  it,  in  this  manner,  with 
the  persecutors  of  innocence,  agreeing  to  chastise  inno 
cence  in  a  way  of  quieting  their  malignity,  was  ready,  of 
course,  to  crucify  for  no  better  reason.  Thus  it  has  been 


27 

with  our  compromises  over  the  slave  and  slavery.  They 
have  only  done  what  they  must — prepared  us  to  crucify 
with  a  Nebraska  after  we  have  compounded  in  a  Mis 
souri.  Let  us  have  no  more  then  of  these  compromises  for 
the  Union:  we  have  had  enough.  They  have  taken  away 
the  conscience  of  our  public  men,  and  turned  the  north 
ern  iron  that  was  in  them,  to  iron  only,  or  pewter,  or  per 
chance  to  dough.  It  has  sometimes  seemed  as  if  the 
people,  nay  and  even  the  ministers  of  religion,  were  un 
dergoing  a  correspondent  transformation — the  whole  north 
changing  to  a  continent  of  dough.  But  it  is  not  so,  as 
we  are  beginning,  at  last,  to  show.  It  is  only  the  political 
gamesters  that  have  really  undergone  the  change.  And 
now  we  understand  them.  They  have  brought  us  to  the 
point  where  there  is  not  so  much  as  a  gauze  of  plausibil 
ity  to  cover  their  dishonor  longer.  They  may  pass  the 
Nebraska  bill ;  if  they  do,  we  will  as  certainly  repeal  it, 
waging  the  repeal  as  a  holy  crusade  till  it  is  carried ;  and 
then,  if  it  is  found  that  slavery  has,  meantime,  gained  a 
footing  there,  we  will  wash  the  territories  with  nitre,  but 
that  every  stain  of  slavery  upon  them  shall  be  removed. 

It  may  seem  that,  in  the  freedom  I  have  here  indulged, 
I  encourage  a  rash  and  headlong  spirit  of  sectionalism, 
such  as  perils  the  continuance  of  our  institutions  and  the 
practical  administration  of  our  laws.  It  can  not  be 
denied  that  matters  are  now  verging  toward  an  array  of 
section  against  section,  in  our  country.  God  forbid  that 
we  should  have  any  pleasure,  or  any  but  a  feeling  of  pro- 
foundest  sorrow,  in  view  of  such  a  result.  We  have  all 
one  country.  As  men  of  the  north  we  love  our  country. 
We  pray  for  it  not  as  by  section,  but  we  say — "  The 
north  and  the  south  thou  hast  created  them."  But  when 
it  comes  to  this,  that  we  are  to  be  sold  in  our  principles, 
that  the  pledges  by  which,  in  part,  we  saved  our  princi- 


i 


28 

pies,  are  sacrificed  by  a  public  lie,  when  we  have  no  longer 
any  country  left  but  slavery,  what  can  we  do  but  see  if 
we  can  reclaim  by  a  section,  if  need  be,  that  which  we 
are  losing  as  a  republic.  We  can  do  nothing  less.  It  is 
better  to  have  the  section  of  a  just  nationality,  than  the 
whole  of  a  common  dishonor.  And  it  is  high  lime  that 
we  had  made  up  our  minds  to  if.  Had  we  done  so  be 
fore  consenting  to  flinch  in  our  principles,  or  to  sacrifice 
them  prudentially  to  the  Union,  it  would  in  my  opinion 
have  been  a  great  deal  better,  both  for  us  and  for  the  time 
to  come. 

Certain  I  am  of  this  that  we  are  not  required,  by  any 
considerations  of  genuine  patriotism,  to  give  heed  longer 
to  the  insane  threats  and  sublimated  airs  of  slavery.  We 
can  be  imposed  upon  no  longer  by  these  plantation  atti 
tudes  ;  and  woe  be  to  the  public  man,  whose  northern  iron 
turns  to  baser  metal,  before  these  cheap  intimidations.  We 
have  tried  what  we  could  in  savins:  the  Union,  let  us  now 

o  / 

try  what  we  can  do  in  a  way  of  saving  our  principles  and 
our  pledges  to  liberty.  Or  better  still,  let  us  take  our 
ground  firmly  and  declare  to  the  world,  God  helping  us, 
that  we  will  save  both  our  principles  and  the  Union,  or 
die  in  the  attempt. 

And  in  order  to  confirm  ourselves  in  our  vow,  it  is  need 
ful  that  we  now  withdraw  our  public  men,  as  much  as 
possible  from  the  mere  games  of  politics,  and  see  to  it, 
first,  that  we  have  a  principled  legislation,  then  that  hav 
ing  good  laws  we  enforce  and  faithfully  keep  them.  Let 
us  choose  our  magistrates  and  leaders  not  to  own  us  for 
their  capital,  but  to  serve  us  and  our  principles;  and  then 
let  us  watch  them  with  a  vigilance  that  never  sleeps,  hav 
ing  it  always  for  a  truth,  whenever  one  of  them  is  discov 
ering  some  new-fangled  "  unconstitutionally,"  or  some 
new  "  principle"  which  is  a  creature  of  abstraction  invented 


29 

to  cover  up  a  concrete  wrong,  that  he  is  certainly  prepar 
ing  a  fraud  under  which  to  shelter  and  disguise  his  obliqui 
ties.  Let  us  also  understand  that  we  are  not  to  be  used 
as  the  conveniences  or  makeweights  of  any  scheme  of 
political  availability,  and  that  as  Mordecai  would  not  bow 
down  at  the  gate  before  Haman  the  king's  minister,  be 
cause  he  was  an  Amalekite,  the  national  enemy  of  Israel, 
risking  thus  the  life  of  all  his  countrymen,  and  trusting  it 
to  God  to  vindicate  his  fidelity,  so  let  us  have  it  for  a 
law  to  assert  and  vote  our  principles,  and  leave  it  to  God 
to  reveal  the  justification  of  our  conduct.  Our  children 
meantime  let  us  train  for  a  like  fidelity.  Let  us  see  that 
the  true  northern  iron  is  in  them,  not  any  meaner  com 
pound  of  untempered  iron,  pewter,  clay,  or  dough.  Let 
them  be  formed  to  integrity,  industry,  truth,  firmness; 
armed  with  a  spirit  of  jealous  vigilance  that  can  not 
sleep  and  will  not  withhold,  when  the  institutions  we 
leave  to  them  are  beset  by  any  conspiracy  or  betrayed  and 
sold  by  ambitious  and  faithless  men. 

When  Freedom,  on  her  natal  day, 
Within  her  war-rocked  cradle  lay, 

An  iron  race  around  her  stood 

v    ^^^ 
Baptized  her  infant  brow  in  blood, 

And  through  the  storm  that  round  her  swept 
Their  constant  ward  and  watching  kept. 

So  be  it  ours,  and  the  charge  of  our  children  after  us, 
to  be  the  "iron  race,"  and  in  that  name  the  watches  and 
wards  of  liberty. 


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